February 2019 – On 3 December 2018, Bulgaria’s Supreme Court of Cassation (“SCC”) issued Interpretative Judgment No 1 (the “Judgement”) on interpretative proceedings No 1/2017 of the General Assembly of the Panel of Commerce. The Judgement provides guidance to certain issues concerning insolvency proceedings that in the past have been adjudicated differently by the courts. In particular, courts have reached different interpretations of certain provisions of Bulgarian law directly relating to the participation of creditors in insolvency proceedings and the satisfaction of their claims.

Under Bulgarian law, persons who manage and represent companies and cooperatives (“Officers”) have a duty to file for bankruptcy 30 days from the cessation of payments if the entity they manage and represent becomes insolvent. Apart from the personal liability to creditors for late filing, the aforementioned Officers could be held criminally liable. During the last few years, the practice of the lower courts regarding this criminal liability was inconsistent. Generally there were two interpretations of the law: